Return Home
     
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 
     
  ARTIST STATEMENTS  
  ABOUT THE "WAITING CHAMBER"  
  For as long as I can remember, the image of a circle would appear to me. Negative space on the inside surrounded by endless, external negative space. The line separating them was thin and sketchy, as if drawn by hand. Sometimes the irregular, imperfect oval took on the shape of a face; at other times it described the contours of an open mouth. Sometimes it became an outline separating the individual from the outside air.

I create sculptures that rely on our understanding of our bodies. Do we see ourselves as substantial, massive, our torsos solid and dense? Or do we see ourselves as vessels, a body of internal cavities, a waiting chamber? Are we made of surfaces, separated from the outside by the thinness of our skins.

My sculptures like organs of the body, separate, yet part of a whole. They suggest a point in a life cycle - either growing and expanding, or sagging and depleted. We feel empathy for these objects, compounded by the sensuality of the color and the abjectness of the forms.

Cast in rubber, the sculptures seem vulnerable to touch. They are cast as vessels, with suggestions of intrenal cavities. Several pieces are installed on stiff steel rods that are mounted on the walls, floors, and ceilings of a space. Held in place by the insensibility of steel, the tender false flesh of my sculptures is exposed; the internal becomes external..

The sculptures set up a series of dialectics. They suggest the confluence of seemingly irreconcilable contradictions. Qualities of pain and pleasure, vulnerability and empowerment, intimacy and distance are expressed in equal measure. The pieces catalyze emotions from arousal to ambivalence, creating a heightened experience that implicates the viewer.

The works on paper are constructed with a process that is both sculptural and surgical. Sheets of translucent vellum are cut and rouged with reoil crayon to create patterns of color, shape, and depth. Like the sculptures, these patterns suggest the forms of the body, recalling figures, faces, and open mouths. The works on paper create the impression of seeing internal, biological forms through layers of translucent skin, or through a glass slide.
 
     
all images copyright Imi Hwangbo no reproduction without written permission.